The first thing we have to do is explain to the younger generations who Gordie Howe was and why he was Mr Elbows.
Gordie harkened back to the days when we played hockey without helmets, face masks, but with real wooden sticks and missing front teeth. Gordie was a goodly-sized man, a proper gentleman on the ice until you offended him, or went into the corner thinking you could get the puck before he could. Ha.
He was not one to drop his gloves but could get his elbows up and in your face. If you took umbrage, and tossed your hockey gloves, look out.
So saying ‘get our elbows up’ in reply to Trump’s foolishness is just a warning that we are not going to be pushed around in the corners or at centre ice. Especially on our own ice.
The problem with the hockey analogy is that it is difficult to tell if in the NHL and PWHL the players are American or Canadian or even other nationalities. Maybe we will have to label them with little flags like we do with our food stuffs so we can avoid the Stars and Stripes. But when you cross that artificial red line at centre ice, heads up.
Take for instance, the Toronto Maple Leafs (please): their captain is an American. I suppose that is not his fault, but it makes it even more difficult to cheer for them to win the Lord Stanley Cup. What are the odds anyway? It is just a game so forget about those turncoats Orr and Gretzky.
The problem is, we are not playing hockey. Nor are we, as Zelenskyy famously said in the Oval Office, playing cards with the Trump administration.
Going further afield, we, and the rest of the world, don’t know what Donald Trump is playing at. Not to question his sanity, but one might wonder if he knows what his end game is. Maybe we are playing golf, where Himself gets all the mulligans he wants, and keeps the scorecards for everyone by his tally. Mar-a-Lago rules.
The problem with Trump is that we – no one – knows what he is going to do next. Or why he just did what he did. It is the Trump Uncertainty Principle. This is playing out on the stock markets as people with money try to out-manoeuvre a four-year-old who is diddling with their money. I mean, other people’s money.
Fed up with the Trump Uncertainty Principle, our Duggy laid on a little cross-border electricity tax in what he says is an opening salvo – a shot across the bow. After getting an explanation of this analogy, a petty attempt at gamesmanship, The Donald threw down a pair of deuces, and raised Duggy another 20%. Duggy raised back with a Stellantis plant and one EV battery factory, but Donnie was ready with a 50% tariff on beer cans. One can see how petty this whole mess is.
The supposed reason for all this tariff BS is that the US debt to GDP is 123% and Donald wants it down. (Ours is 107%, so we need to work on that. I wonder if we should put some tariffs on something?). The US owes China about $890 billion dollars, so following Donald’s logic, China is subsidizing the US. Isn’t that how he thinks?
I suppose it is good business to get someone else to pay your debts if you can. Either by bullying, coercion, or tariffs.
However, keeping our Canadian characteristics, we can go into the corners with our elbows up as a warning, but the better tactic is to keep your head up, keep your stick on the ice, and skate like hell.
Buy Canadian when you can. Just saying.
